8 killed as bombs explode near police station, Australian Embassy


Darren Mccollester / Getty Images
Smoke rises from the scene of a massive car bomb that exploded near the Australian Embassy early Wednesday.


NBC News and news services
Updated: 2:06 a.m. ET Jan. 19, 2005


BAGHDAD, Iraq - A truck bomb exploded near the Australian Embassy in Baghdad on Wednesday, and a half-hour later a car bomb shook a police station also in the Iraqi capital, with the blasts killing a total of eight people, police and officials said.

A third, smaller explosion was heard and smoke was seen rising near the Green Zone, the heavily fortified compound housing the U.S. Embassy and Iraq’s interim government offices.

The truck bomb exploded near the Australian Embassy’s cement blast barriers around 7 a.m. in a blast that rocked the center of the city. U.S. troops and tanks sealed off the area, which was strewn with flaming wreckage.

An Iraqi guard at the nearby Australian ambassador’s residence said a man drove a truck cab, without a trailer, to the cement barriers in front of the embassy, then fled in another car that was waiting for him.

The truck cab then exploded, said the guard, who only identified himself as Hassan.

In the Australian capital, Canberra, acting foreign minister Philip Ruddock told reporters said there was no evidence that the embassy itself was targeted.

“There is no indication at this stage that the embassy was specifically being targeted,” Ruddock said.

“Obviously in relation to these matters you continue to assess the situation and examine the evidence," he said.

No embassy staff or Australian troops were injured in the incident, Ruddock said.

An Iraqi Interior Ministry official said two people were killed and four were wounded. The blast destroyed the vehicle and left its twisted wreckage in flames.

The embassy is located in Baghdad’s central Jadiriyah neighborhood.

The second blast was caused by another car bomb that targeted a police station in Baghdad’s eastern Elwiyah neighborhood, police Lt. Nateq Ahmed said. He gave no further details.

An Interior Ministry official told The Associated Press six people were killed and several others wounded in that explosion.

Back in action
The security situation in Iraq is so critical now, NBC News has learned, that the Iraqi interior ministry has recalled two full battalions — about 2,000 men — from Saddam Hussein’s army, the same army the United States dissolved. All of them are retrained as special police to battle terrorism expected at polling stations on Jan. 30.

“We needed to find a quick solution so we depended on some ex-military special units,” said Falah al-Naqib, the Iraqi interior minister, told NBC News.

And in another departure from past practices, these units will also have the use of armored vehicles by Election Day, Jan. 30. Until now, only coalition troops have had heavy weapons to confront insurgents.

Al-Naqib, a Sunni, cited another danger: the possibility of a civil war if Iranian-backed Shiite candidates dominate the elections.

“If we have a government that does not represent all Iraqis, and we have a government work for other countries, not for Iraq … yes, we will have a civil war,” al-Naqib said.

U.N. upbeat on elections
Iraqi intelligence claims Iran now spends $250 million a month — in payments to Shiite parties, preachers and charities — to ensure that a pro-Iranian regime is elected.

Still, election preparations are going ahead. Carlos Valenzuela, the chief U.N. election adviser, told NBC News that, technically at least, Iraq is ready.

“I do think it's possible to hold elections that are credible under such difficult circumstances,” Valenzuela said. The United Nations said more than 100,000 election workers have been hired, and more than 7,000 candidates are running.

3 candidates killed
But fresh violence proved the dangers to seeking office. Gunmen have killed three of those candidates, officials said Tuesday, as a suicide bombing killed three people outside the offices of a leading Shiite political party, in the second such attack in a month.

With insurgents trying to ruin the election, officials announced that Iraq will seal its borders, extend a curfew and restrict movement to protect voters during the balloting. President Bush spoke Tuesday morning with Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, the latest in a series of conversations between the two leaders on Iraq’s efforts to ensure maximum participation in the election.

Two of the slain candidates belonged to Allawi’s political coalition, the Iraqi National Accord, a member of the group said.

Alaa Hamid, who was running for the 275-member National Assembly, was shot dead Monday in the southern port city of Basra in front of his family, the official said on condition of anonymity. Hamid was also the deputy chairman of the Iraqi Olympic Committee in Basra.

Riad Radi, who was running in the local race for Basra’s provincial council on a list supported by Allawi’s INC, was killed Sunday when masked gunmen fired on his car as he was driving with his family, the official said.

Basra, a predominantly Shiite Muslim city, has been relatively calm in recent weeks, though insurgents fired four mortar rounds Sunday at schools slated to serve as polling centers.

In Baghdad on Monday, masked gunmen shot dead another candidate, Shaker Jabbar Sahla, a Shiite Muslim who was running in the National Assembly election for the Constitutional Monarchy Movement. The party is headed by Sharif Ali bin Hussein, a cousin of Iraq’s last king.

Sunnis increasingly targeting Shiites
Sunni Muslim militants, who make up the bulk of Iraq’s insurgency, are increasingly homing in on Shiites in their effort to ruin the election that is widely expected to propel their religious rivals to a position of dominance. Many Sunnis argue that security is precarious and the election should not take place under foreign occupation.

Tuesday’s suicide car bombing in Baghdad gouged a crater in the pavement, left several vehicles in flames and spread shredded debris on the street outside the offices of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a main contender in the election. The Shiite party, known as SCIRI, has close ties to Iran and is strongly opposed by Sunni Muslim militants.

The assailant told guards at a checkpoint leading to the party’s office that he was part of SCIRI’s security staff, and he detonated his bomb-laden car at the guard post when he was not allowed to enter.

Iraqi police officials reported the bomber and two others were dead and nine people were injured, including three police.

“SCIRI will not be frightened by such an act,” party spokesman Ridha Jawad said. “SCIRI will continue the march toward building Iraq, establishing justice and holding the elections.”

Borders to be closed
The Independent Electoral Commission announced that the country’s international borders would be closed from Jan. 29 until Jan. 31, except for Muslim pilgrims returning from the hajj in Saudi Arabia.

Iraqis also will be barred from traveling between provinces, and a nighttime curfew will be imposed during the same period, according to a statement from the commission’s Farid Ayar.

Such measures had been expected because of the grave security threat. U.S. and Iraqi authorities are hoping to encourage a substantial turnout but fear that if most Sunnis stay away from the polls, the legitimacy of the new government will be in doubt.

Iraq’s interior minister warned that if the country’s Sunni Arab minority bows to rebel threats and stays away from the polls, the nation could descend into civil war.

Al-Naqib, the interior minister, told reporters he expects Sunni insurgents to escalate attacks before the election, especially in the Baghdad area.

70,000 more troops promised
“If any group does not participate in the elections, it will constitute treason,” al-Naqib said, adding that “boycotting the elections will not produce a National Assembly that represents the Iraqi people” but will cause “a civil war that will divide the country.”

Allawi said he will boost the country’s armed forces with 70,000 more troops in an effort to take over more security tasks from U.S.-led forces. He said the forces would be “equipped with the most advanced weapons.”

Meanwhile, a Catholic archbishop kidnapped by gunmen in the northern city of Mosul was released Tuesday, a day after his abduction. The Vatican had called his abduction a “terrorist act.”

Other developments
A video surfaced Tuesday showing eight Chinese construction workers held hostage by gunmen claiming the men are employed by a company working with U.S. troops, in the latest abduction of foreigners in Iraq. China’s Foreign Ministry said it was “taking all measures to rescue the hostages,” the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Elsewhere, a third American died in fighting in Iraq’s troubled Anbar province, west of Baghdad, the military said Tuesday. Two others assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force also were killed in action there Monday.

The military gave no other details and it was unclear whether the three troops were killed in a suicide car bombing in the western city of Ramadi that U.S. officials said resulted in American casualties.

A court-martial prosecuting British soldiers, meanwhile, released photographs that apparently showed troops assaulting Iraqi prisoners and forcing them to simulate sex acts.

NBC News' Richard Engel, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6727646/